


I Love You Oops

by witchway



Category: teen wolf - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Saying I Love You -- Who Goes First?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchway/pseuds/witchway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when it gets said too soon?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Love You Oops

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sterec](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Sterec).



The topography of Derek’s shoulders were amazing, bordering on unreal. Tracing a finger over the mountain range of his shoulders, the chiseled perfection of his biceps, the almost embarrassing definition of his pectorals, was one of Stiles’ favorite hobbies. 

The fact that this landscape was within arm’s reach, was in fact lying the bed right next to him, damp with sweat that *Stiles* had inspired, took the boy’s breath away. Distracted him. Sometimes, so much that he really couldn’t concentrate on anything else, and missed important information.

Right now, for instance. Derek had said something……Derek was looking down at him with those smoldering eyes, patiently allowing Stiles to run a finger once again over one shoulder, one bicep, on pectoral muscle. 

“Yeah….” Stiles had replied, wrapping his hand around one tree-trunk of a wrist, marveling, once again, that his fingers just wouldn’t reach all the way around.

But “yeah,” had, apparently, not been the right answer.

Derek started, looked away. Closed his mouth, lowered his head.

Apologized.

“Never mind,” he said, his hurt audible.

“I should go,” he said next and pulled his wrist away from Stiles’ hand, his whole body away from Stiles’ gaze.

“Wait…you’re leaving? Don’t be leaving. Leaving is bad, stop leaving….wait .....did you say…..”

“I said I’m sorry,” Derek grumbled, reaching for his underwear, then his jeans. Stiles tried to rewind the conversation in his head, the way he rewound lectures in class, to find out what he had missed, to find out why he was in trouble. Just now, leaning over him, letting the hyperactive little boy play with his massive wrists, Derek had said…

“Forget it, I’m just saying stupid things. Just getting in trouble with my mouth.” He grumbled, and now he was looking for his socks, and Stiles was torn between saying something, ANYTHING to make this horrible dressing discontinue, and processing the noises that had just been voiced above his head. Had Derek just said….?

“I thought that was my job.” Stiles’ mouth said, moving automatically as his brain processed. 

_I love you._

Derek, just now, had looked down at him with those amazing eyes and said “ _I love you._ ”

And Stiles answer? “Yeah.” 

“Wait you….me? _Really?_ I thought ……” Derek was sitting, half dressed, on his bed now, but Stiles had lost all ability to conceive of how to keep him there, keep him from dressing, keep him from leaving. Right now, the brain Stiles relied on to keep processing data until it made sense was hung up, looping endlessly, trying to compute the impossible.

“ME? But I always thought, I mean I figured you probably thought I was an idiot. “

“Well,” Derek said calmly, rising, walking to the bathroom. “To be fair, you are an idiot.”

“Exactly! Stiles exclaimed, relieved, for a moment, to find himself back on solid ground. 

“And I am too. Unlike you, however, I am an COMPLETE idiot AND an utter failure. So while it’s obvious why you might not want to be with me, it’s….kind of obvious why I want to be with you.

“I’ll go.” 

He stepped into the bathroom.

Stiles’ mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. He searched for words but no words came – the cursor that moved across the desktop in his brain was spinning endlessly, helplessly, uselessly.

_I love you._

The man had said _I love you._

There were only two answers available, yes? Negative and positive. Stiles kept opening his mouth to answer in the positive, but the words weren’t there. 

Why weren’t the words there?

Because the words had to be _honest_ , that was why. The words had to be absolute, eternal. They could not be feigned, or faked or copied or, worse, a guess. They had to be certain. Forever. And certain was a sensation Stiles Stilinksi hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

Feeling naked in more ways that once Stiles reached for his underwear, then his jeans. This was a plan, ad a plan was better than nothing. He, Stiles the Hyperactive Shit, had fucked up once again, and let the single most gorgeous man in Beacon Hills (and possibly the universe) down. Had broken his heart. Was driving him away. The plan seemed obvious: Despair. Give up. Be alone. That was a plan, and it was better than nothing.

But when he was half dressed he sat down on the bed again. This was a plan, but it was not a *good* plan – he needed a better plan. And why not? Derek Hale loved him, had just now said so, and if Derek Hale believed in him then maybe he was capable of something better.

“When in doubt, tell the truth” his father had always told him, so when Derek emerged from the bathroom and reached for his shirt Stiles did his best.

“Derek, you’re going to die. You, and Scott, and me, and my dad, and possibly everyone at once is going to die and I don’t know how and I don’t know in what order the only thing I DO know for sure is that it IS going to happen, and every moment of every day I’m trying to distract myself from that thought but I *can’t* let myself get distracted because I need to be ready because I need to know what to do when it happens I need to be ready and I AM ready and I know how I’m going to feel then but that makes it hard to know….that makes hard to know how I feel right now.”

 

His face was burning as he spoke but at least he felt himself back on familiar ground – pushing words out desperately, pushing them ALL out in hopes that he wouldn’t be interrupted until they were all said and hoping, desperately, that when they were ALL said they would land in the air in the right order and his meaning could be discerned.

When he thought all the words were said, he looked up.

Derek was looking at him gently, again, and that was something. His shirt was on his shoulders, but he wasn’t buttoning. That was something too.

“I understand,” he said, finally, quietly, and in his eyes Stiles thought that he probably did. “I’ve felt like that for most….well….for all of my adult life.” He stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and reached out to cup Stiles’ face. “Which is why I know how I feel. I love you. It’s ok if you don’t feel the same way, it’s not fair to pressure you. But I still love you.”

Stiles looked up at him helplessly. His mouth opened and he felt his bottom lip trembling. “I just…..I don’t ever want to say ….that….if I’m not sure.”

“Then don’t say it, just say how you feel.”

“I … I love…..I love everything about you,” Stiles stammered, and the invisible hand that was gripping his chest let go and he could breathe again, and breathing was beautiful. “I love your face and your whole body and how you roll your eyes at everything that should scare you and how you never let on how much anything hurts and you never stop fighting, and how you set your shoulders and the way you can turn your head to say something biting and it makes everything ok and the way you can hold me and make me feel safe even when I’m screaming so loud my throat hurts the next day and when you’re in the room it makes me so excited and when you touch me I can feel so calm and when you’re right next to me I can concentrate, I can focus, and nothing can distract me. And I know you can hear my heart when it’s pounding….” He stopped to breathe – this was GOOD, actually. He could see by Derek’s face that he was doing good. “And when I remember that you can hear my heart pound I can relax, because I know you’re here with me.”

Derek was leaning in to kiss him, but it wasn’t time yet, there was something else he had to say and blurted it out quickly before he lost his nerve.

“But you’re going to die,” he said, and he hadn’t mean for it to sound so angry, so accusatory, but it did, and it brought Derek up short. “You’re going to die, and so am I, and I don’t know in what order, and I don’t’ know….I don’t know what to do with that.”

Derek regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. Then he kissed him on the top of his head. 

“Yeah, there’s that,” he murmured against the head beneath his hand, sounding defeated. He stroked Stiles head one more time and turned, buttoning his shirt, towards the door.

“Don’t, don’t leave,” Stiles whispered, fighting tears. He had failed, many, many times, but this was just one time too many.

“No, it’s ok. I think I should go,” he said, and he seemed to be smiling. At least he *wasn’t* glowering or looking desperately unhappy, and that was something.

“But you’ll be back?” Stiles asked, hopefully.

“Of COURSE I’ll be back…. seriously, Stiles, who else would have me? I’m a 23 man with no job, no prospects, and no adult friends.” He turned before he left and flashed a brilliant smile.

“Yeah, there’s that…..” Stiles replied, laying back on his bed with a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by an awesome gif set by 
> 
> http://sterec.tumblr.com/


End file.
